The
first words of the Gospel of St. John touch upon the deepest
mysteries of the world. This can be seen when we allow the truths
of Spiritual Science which lie at their very foundation to pass
before our souls. And we must dip deeply into spiritual knowledge
if these first words of this Gospel are to appear to us in the
right light. We must recall to memory much that is well known to
those of you who for a long time have been occupying yourselves
with the anthroposophical worldview. But today we shall
need to expand certain elementary truths of this worldview by
penetrating further into various significant cosmic mysteries.

We
need but briefly call to mind how the human being appears to us
between the time of waking in the morning and the evening, when
he again sinks into sleep. We know that he is composed of a
physical body, an etheric or life body, an astral body, and an I.
These four members of the human being are, however, in close
relationship only during the waking state. It is quite necessary
that we remember that during the night, while sleeping, the human
being is entirely different than during the day, during waking consciousness, for then the
four members are assembled in a very different manner. When he
sleeps, the physical and life bodies lie in bed. The astral body
and the I are loosened from their connections with the physical and
life bodies and are in fact outside of them — we must
understand the word outside in a spiritual, not in a
purely spatial sense. Therefore, during the night the human being
consists of two parts, one that remains lying in bed and another
which separates from the physical and etheric or life bodies. Now we must
first of all clearly understand that if, during the night, from
the moment of going to sleep to the moment of waking again in the
morning, the physical and etheric bodies lying in bed were
completely abandoned by what fills them throughout the day —
that is, the astral body and the I — they could not then
exist at all.

Here at this point
we must enter a little more deeply into the cosmic mysteries.
When we have the human physical body here before us, we should
clearly understand that behind what we can see with our eyes and
touch with our hands there is a long evolutionary process. It has
passed through this process of evolution along with the
evolution of our earthly planet. To those of you who
have occupied yourselves with this subject, it is
already known that our earth has passed through previous stages
of existence and, just as the human being has gone from one
incarnation to another or, in other words, has passed through
repeated earth lives, so too has the earth passed through other
stages of existence before it reached the condition in which we find it
today.

There
are previous incarnations of a planet just as there are previous
incarnations of a human being. Everything in the great world and
in the small world is subject to the law of repeated
incarnations, and before the earth finally became this earth of
ours it had passed through a condition of being which we call the
“Ancient [Note
1]
Moon,” so called because the present moon contains a
portion of that ancient planet. So when we speak of the “Ancient
Moon,” we do not at all mean the present moon, but a planet
similar to the present earth in its earliest stages. Just as
there is a period between one incarnation and a new birth in the
case of human beings, so also is there a period between the
incarnation of this planet of ours which we call the Earth, and
that one we designate as the Ancient Moon, and the same is true
of that life-condition which we call the “Ancient Sun.” A
state which we call the “Sun” preceded the Moon-state
of our planet and again this Sun-state was preceded by an “Ancient Saturn”
existence. Thus we can look back on three earlier
incarnations of our planet.

Our physical human
body received its very first rudiments upon the ancient Saturn.
Upon that ancient planet the very first germ of a physical body
was created, but, of course, one very different from the human
body of the present. Besides the physical body, nothing that is a
part of the human being of today was present on ancient Saturn.
Only when Saturn was transformed into the Sun, that is to say,
during the second incarnation of our Earth, was the etheric or
life-body added to the physical body, penetrating and
impregnating it. And what was the result? The physical human body
underwent a transformation, acquired another form and attained a
very different state of existence. During the Sun incarnation of
our Earth, the physical body stood at a second stage of its
development. But how did it reach this second stage? By becoming
an inwardly living body on the Sun, while on Saturn it was still
machine-like and automatic. The etheric or life-body transformed
the physical body.

Then on the Ancient
Moon, the astral body entered this union of physical and etheric
bodies. Thus the physical body was transformed a third time and
the etheric body a second time. At last during the Earth stage the human
I was added to the physical, etheric and astral bodies, and
having now entered into this threefold union, the I transformed
this physical body again, so that at last it became the complex
structure which it is today. Therefore, what you have before you
now as the human physical body is a many times transformed
entity, and just because it has passed through four stages of
evolution it has its present complex appearance.

If we say, when
speaking of our present physical body, that it is composed of the
same physical and chemical substances and forces to be found in
the minerals out in the cosmos, it must nevertheless be quite
clear to us that there is an enormous difference between this
physical human body and the minerals. Speaking in very elementary
terms, we emphasize the difference between the physical human
body and the physical body of a mineral — for example, of a
rock crystal — when we say that the rock crystal retains
its form unless shattered from without. The human physical body,
on the contrary, cannot of itself retain its form. It has its
form only as long as there are within it an etheric body, an
astral body, and an I. The moment the etheric body, the astral
body, and the I are separated from it, it becomes something quite
different from what it is between birth and death; it follows the
laws of the physical and chemical substances and forces, and
decays, whereas the physical body of the mineral
remains unchanged.

Something similar
is the case with the etheric body. Immediately after death the
etheric and astral bodies and the I separate from the physical
body; then after a time the etheric body also leaves this union
of astral body and I and resolves itself into the cosmic ether,
just as the physical body disintegrates and goes back into the
earth. There remains behind only that extract of the etheric body
of which we have often spoken. This remains united with the human
being. Therefore we may say that the physical human body is in a
certain sense of the same nature as the mineral kingdom about us.
Nevertheless, we must keep in mind the great difference which
exists between the mineral kingdom and the human physical body.

One might object:
but you have just stated that on Ancient Saturn our physical body
was not yet permeated by an etheric body, an astral body and an
I, for they were only added on the Sun, Moon and Earth. Therefore
at that time, in fact the physical
body must have had the character of a mineral. That is true, but we have
mentioned three metamorphoses of this physical body that one
after the other have succeeded that early stage of the Saturn
period. Even the present mineral, which you have before you as a
dead mineral, cannot possibly exist with only a physical body.
Let us make it very clear that what has been said and must be
repeated is true, that as far as the physical world is concerned,
the mineral has only a physical body. Here in the physical world
the mineral has only a physical body; however, that is not
literally true. Just as the human physical body, standing
before us, has within it its etheric and astral bodies and its I, so too has the mineral not only a physical
body, but also an etheric and an astral body, and an I. However,
these higher members of its being are to be found only in higher
realms. The mineral has an etheric body, but it is to be
found in the so-called astral world; it has also an astral body,
but it is in the so-called devachanic or heaven-world, and it has
an I, but this exists in a still higher spiritual world. Thus the
physical human body differs from the physical body of a mineral
in having here in this physical world, in a waking state, its
etheric and astral bodies and I within it, while the mineral has
not. We know that besides our world there are still other worlds.
The world which we ordinarily perceive with our physical senses
is permeated by the astral world and this again by the devachanic
world, which consists of an inferior and a superior region.

In comparison with
the mineral, the human being is an especially favored creature,
because during waking consciousness he has his other three
members within him. The mineral does not contain these members
within itself, so we must think of it as not existing wholly upon
the physical plane. Think of a human fingernail. You will concede
that nowhere outside in nature can you find this fingernail
existing as an independent entity, for if it is to grow, it
presupposes the rest of the human organism; it cannot exist
without this. Now imagine a tiny creature with eyes that can see
only your fingernail, but is not able to see the rest of your
organism. Such a tiny creature would look out into the rest of
space, but would see nothing but your fingernail. Thus the
minerals on the physical plane are like the fingernail and you
only perceive them in their entirety when you rise into higher
realms. There they have their etheric and astral bodies and Is
and here only their physical part. All this we must hold firmly
in mind in order that it may be quite clear that in a higher
reality there can be no entity that does not possess some kind of
etheric and astral body and I. A purely physical being can have
no existence; to exist at all it must have an etheric and an
astral body, and an I.

However, in all
that has been said today there is in fact a certain
contradiction. We have stated that the human being in the night
while asleep is entirely different from the creature we see
during the day when he is awake. By day he is quite
comprehensible to us. We have him there before us as a four-fold
being. But now let us approach him in sleep and observe his
physical nature. Here we have the physical body and the etheric
or life-body lying in bed, the astral body and the I are outside. Thus
arises the contradictory condition of having before us a being
deserted by its astral body and its I. The stone does not sleep. Its
etheric and astral bodies and I do not penetrate it, but remain
constantly in the same relationship with it. With the human
being, on the contrary, the astral body and the I depart each night
and leaves the physical and etheric
bodies to themselves. This fact is not always
fully considered. Every night the human being, in his truly
spiritual part, takes leave of his physical and etheric bodies.
However, these bodies would not be able to exist by themselves,
because no physical body, and for that matter no etheric body,
can exist by itself. Even the stone must be permeated by its
higher members. Therefore you can easily comprehend that it is
wholly impossible for your physical and etheric bodies to
remain in bed at night without an astral body and an I. What
occurs then during the night? Your own astral body and I are
indeed not within the physical and etheric bodies, but present in
their place there is another I and another astral body. At this
point, we call your attention to a divine-spiritual existence and
to higher spiritual powers. During the night, while your own I
and astral body are outside your physical and etheric bodies, the
astral body and I of higher, divine-spiritual powers are actually
active within them. And the reason for this is the following.

When we consider
the whole of human evolution from the Saturn stage through the
Sun and Moon periods as far as the Earth, we might indeed say
that upon Saturn only the human physical body existed, that there
was no human etheric body, no human astral body and no human I
within this physical body. But this physical body, at that time,
could have no more existed by itself than the stone today can
exist by itself. The physical body of that time could only exist
because it was permeated by the etheric and astral bodies and the
I of divine-spiritual beings which dwelt within it, and they
still dwell there today. Then on the Sun, when our own etheric
body entered into this physical body, the smaller human etheric
body amalgamated, as it were, with the earlier etheric body of
divine-spiritual powers. Even upon Ancient Saturn the physical
body was permeated by divine-spiritual beings.

If we have now
understood this properly, we come to a deeper comprehension of
the present human being and we are in a position to repeat and to
understand better what has been taught in esoteric Christianity
from the beginning. This esoteric Christianity has always been
fostered alongside Christian exoteric teaching. I have
often pointed out that Paul, the great apostle of Christianity,
used his powerful, fiery gift of eloquence to teach Christianity
to the people, but that at the same time he founded an esoteric
school, the director of which was
Dionysius the Areopagite,
mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. In this Christian Esoteric
School at Athens, which was directly founded by Paul himself, the
purest Spiritual Science was taught. And now, having brought
together the necessary material in the above observations, we
shall be able to place before our souls what was taught there.

This school also
taught that when we observe the human being standing before us in
his waking state, we find him composed of physical body, etheric
body, astral body, and I. It is of little importance that the
names used were not exactly the same as those used today. Even at
that time the stage of evolution at which humanity now stands was
already predicated. This human being, consisting of these four
members, has not always been as he now appears to us. If we wish
to observe him composed of these four members only, then we must
not observe him as he is today, but we must retrace our
evolutionary steps back to the Lemurian period. It was at that
time that the I became united with the human being composed of
physical, ether, and astral bodies. Thus one might truly say that
then, in the real sense of the word, the human being consisted of
physical, etheric, and astral bodies, and I.

But since that time
every human being has passed through many incarnations. What then
is the significance of this evolution by means of incarnations?
It is that from incarnation to incarnation the I works upon and
transforms the three members of its being. It begins by first
transforming its astral body. In the average person of today the
astral body is not just as it was in the first earthly
incarnation before the I had worked upon it. In the first
incarnation upon the earth the I, working from within outwardly,
transformed certain thoughts, feelings and passions which
originally had been given to men, and from incarnation to
incarnation these were changed more and more through the activity
of the I. Thus it may be said that the human being has today not
only the four members, physical, etheric, and astral bodies and the
I, but through the activity of the I within the astral body, he
has now a member which is the actual creation of the I itself. In
each human being of today, the astral body is twofold; it has one
part that has been transformed by the I, and another part not so
transformed. This will continue and a time will come for every
human being when his entire astral body will become a creation of
his I. It is the custom in oriental wisdom to call that part of
the astral body, which has already been transformed by the I, by
the name of Manas; in English Spirit-Self. Although the human
being is still composed of his four members, we can now
distinguish five elements: physical, etheric and astral bodies, and
I; and as the fifth member, the transformed part of the astral body,
Manas or Spirit-Self. Thus we may say that in every human being
the astral body contains within it Manas or Spirit-Self, the product of the activity of the I.

The human being
will continue to work upon himself. The Earth will pass through
further incarnations and humanity will acquire by degrees the
capacity — which today can be acquired by the initiate —
of working also upon the etheric body. It is true that the
average person today is already working upon his etheric body and
that the part of it which is transformed into a product of the I
is called Budhi or Life-Spirit. He will finally reach the point
where, by means of his I, he will transform his physical body
also. That part of the physical body which is transformed by the
I is called Atman or Spirit-Man.

Let us allow our
glance to sweep to the far distant future after the Earth has
passed through other planetary forms, other incarnations, after —
as occultism describes it — it has gone through the
Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan states of existence. The human being
will then stand upon a very much higher level, and will have
transformed his entire astral body into Manas or Spirit-Self, his
entire etheric body into Budhi or Life-Spirit and his whole
physical body into Atman or Spirit-Man.

Compare this human
being as he will appear to us at the end of our earthly course
with the same human creature as he appeared at its beginning. In
the beginning there was only the physical body, and it was
permeated by an ether and an astral body and an I, but these
belonged to divine higher beings who only dwelt within it. At the
end of the Earth's evolutionary course, the human being will be
entirely permeated by his I. And this I itself dwells within the
astral body, when as Manas or Spirit-Self it permeates this
astral body. The I then permeates the etheric body, which becomes
impregnated by Budhi or Life-Spirit and the physical body becomes
entirely transfused by Atman or Spirit-Man, also the product of
the I.

What a tremendous
difference between the creature at the beginning of this
evolution and the same human being as he will be at the end of
it! But by bringing this great difference clearly before our
minds, what I purposely called a contradiction — the sleep
state — then becomes comprehensible to us. The very form of
the explanation in Esoteric Christianity makes it entirely
intelligible to us. What then is this physical body that we shall
have before us when the earth has reached the goal of its
evolution? Will it be the present physical body? Not in any sense
will it be the present physical body, but what the I shall have
made of it. This physical body, as well as the etheric and astral
bodies, will be wholly spirit-filled. But they were spirit-filled
even before the human being transformed them into spirit through
the activity of his I. Even the stone, as we have said, is today
permeated by the etheric and astral bodies, and I belonging to
it, although they exist in higher spiritual realms.

Thus we see that
Esoteric Christianity has good reason for stating that the human
being cannot yet master what he today possesses as physical body,
because he has not yet reached the end of his evolution when his
I will have worked down even into the physical body. He also
cannot yet master the etheric body. He will only be able to
master that when the Earth has reached the Venus stage. So he
cannot yet master the physical and etheric bodies through his I. Only
when he has developed Budhi and Atman will he be able to do this.
But a physical and an etheric body of this kind must be controlled
in a spiritual way. What the human being himself will some day be
able to give to the physical and etheric bodies must already be
present within them. Those spiritual parts which the I will at
some time give to the etheric and physical bodies must be there
even now. They were already within the physical body in the
beginning when the human creature was in the Saturn Evolution;
they were in him when he was on the Sun, and they have continued
to remain within him ever since. Thus Esoteric Christianity
speaks truly when it says: When the human being has reached the
summit of his evolution, what is now already within the human
physical body, the divine Atman, a divine-spiritual being, will
then become a part of it. Budhi also is already within the
etheric body, but it is the divine Life-Spirit. The human astral
body consists, as we have said, of two parts, one of which has
been mastered by the human being and another which has not. What,
then, is present there within that part which he cannot yet
control? It is the Spirit-Self, but a divine Spirit-Self. The
real spiritual life of mankind is only present in that part of
the astral body in which the I has already been active since the
first incarnation. Thus we have the human being before us.

Let us now look at
him in his waking state. What shall we say? The physical body as
it appears to us is only the exterior. Within, he is what may be
called an atmic being. Interiorly, he is composed of and
permeated by higher divine-spiritual beings. The same is true of
the etheric body. Exteriorly, it is what holds the physical body
together; interiorly it is the divine Life-Spirit. And the astral
body also is permeated by a divine being, the Spirit-Self. But
out of this whole combination, the transformed portion of the
astral body alone has been mastered by the I.

Let us now observe
the human being while he sleeps. Here this contradiction
disappears at once. We approach him when he is in this state and
observe that, as astral body and I, he is outside the physical
body. He calmly abandons it and the etheric body every night.
Were he to leave the physical body without its being cared for by
a divine-spiritual being he would find it again, but in a
shattered condition. A divine-spiritual physical and a
divine-spiritual etheric are present within the physical and
etheric bodies and they remain there while these bodies are lying
in bed, with the astral body and I outside. The physical body and
etheric body are permeated by beings of an atmic and budhic
nature.

Now look back to
the beginning of our earthly evolution when nothing in the human
being had yet been mastered by the I. Before his first
incarnation the I was not yet united with the three other
members, the physical, etheric and astral bodies. These last came
over from the Moon stage, but the I did not enter them until the
Earth evolutionary period. But a divine I was present within
them. They would not have been able to exist had not this divine
I completely permeated them. The astral body was permeated by a
divine Spirit-Self, the etheric body by a divine Life-Spirit and
the physical body by a divine Atman or Spirit-Man.

Let us look back
still further to the Moon, Sun, and Saturn evolutions. Upon
Saturn the divine Life-Spirit — which in the night
dwells within the human being lying in bed — had the power
to form the human physical body into something similar to a mineral.
During the Sun stage, this Life-Spirit transformed the physical
body into something of the nature of a plant and on the Moon it
was able to form this body into something that experiences
pleasure and pain, but which could not yet say “I” to
itself. The physical body passed through these lowest stages.

Now, let us proceed
to the Earth incarnation. Here, by experiencing a further
transformation, the physical human body became still more
perfected than previously. What had it previously been unable to
do? What was yet quite foreign to it? What had the divine Spirit
kept within itself? What had it not yet entrusted to the human
body? It was the power to express in sound the inner life of the
soul. On the Moon this human body, then at the animal stage, was
mute. The capacity to permit the soul to express itself
outwardly in sounds was still with the Divine. It was not yet
entrusted to the body's own being. Although there are also animal
creatures today able to utter cries, such sounds are
something very different from the human vocal sounds. Those
animals still exist under quite different conditions from the
human: they make sounds, it is true, but it is
the Divine within them sounding forth. The power to express the
inner feelings of the soul in words was only bestowed upon men
here upon the Earth. Before this they were mute; thus this
capacity for speech came with life upon the earth.

Let us consider now
for a moment as a whole what we have today brought before our
souls. The power of speech, namely the Word, was originally with
the Divine, and the whole of evolution was so directed that the
Godhead first created, as prerequisite, a physical apparatus
which only later acquired the power to allow this Word to sound
forth out of itself. Everything was thus guided and directed.
Like the flower within its seed, the tone-uttering human being,
endowed with the Word or Logos, existed already in germ upon
Saturn. Sound was concealed within this germ and developed out of
it just as the whole plant grows out of the seed in which it has
been hidden.

Let us look back
upon the physical human body as it existed upon Saturn and ask
ourselves: Whence came this physical human body? What was its
primal source? What did it need to carry it through the whole of
evolution? It came from the Logos, or the Word. For even as early
as the Saturn stage this physical human body was directed in
such a way that it later became capable of speech, became a
witness of the Logos. That you are formed as you are today, that
this human body has its present shape, rests upon the fact that
the Word lies at the very foundation of the
plan of our creation. The human body has been built upon the Word,
and from the beginning it was so endowed that at last the
Word was able to spring forth from it. When, therefore, the
esoteric Christian, looking at this physical human body, asked:
What is its original prototype and what is its image? the answer
was: This human physical body has its origin in the Word or
Logos. This Word or Logos was active from the beginning within
the human physical body — and it is still active there
today when the physical body lies in bed, left by the I. During
that time the divine Logos is active within the members thus
forsaken by the human soul. If we ask: What was the very first
beginning of the physical body? then the answer is: The Logos or
the Word.

We shall now follow
evolution still further. Saturn passed over into the Ancient Sun
Period; and then the life or etheric body was added to the human
physical body. But what must have entered in order that such a
step forward could be made? While on Saturn the physical body was
a kind of machine, an automaton permeated and
maintained by the Logos; on the Sun the life-body was
added within which the divine Life-Spirit was active. During the
Saturn stage the human body was an expression of the Logos;
then Saturn disappeared and this human body was reborn upon the
Sun. To the physical body was added the life-body, permeated by
the Life-Spirit. The Logos became Life on the Sun, while
advancing the human creature to a higher stage. The Logos became
Life on the Sun!

Let us now continue
further. Upon the Ancient Moon the astral body was added to this
human being. What is the astral body? It appears to the
clairvoyant consciousness, even today, as an aura surrounding
the human being. It is a body of light, only it cannot be seen in
the present state of consciousness. But when seen with
clairvoyant vision it appears as light, spiritual light. Our
physical light is only transformed spiritual light and the
physical sunlight is the embodiment of the divine-spiritual
auric cosmic light which is its source. In the present world
there is a light streaming down upon us from the sun. But there
is yet another light which streams forth out of our own inner
radiance. Upon the Ancient Moon the human astral body still
shone for the beings in its environment. Thus upon the Moon the
human astral body was united with the physical and etheric
bodies.

Let us now observe
the progress of evolution as a whole. Upon Saturn we have the
physical body as the expression of the Logos; upon the Sun the
etheric body is added as an expression of the Life-Spirit. The
Logos becomes life. Upon the Moon the light-body is added: Life
becomes light! Here we have the story of the evolution of the
human body. When the human being began life upon the Earth he was
a creation of the divine-spiritual powers. At that time he
existed because within his physical, etheric and astral bodies
the Logos was living, the Logos which was Life and which became
light. What occurred then upon the Earth? In the human being and
for the human being the I now entered, and because of this he
was able not only to live in light and in life, but also
became capable of observing everything externally, capable of
confronting the Logos, life, and light. Therefore everything
became material to him and he acquired a physical material
existence.

Now that we have
developed our train of thought thus far, we have approximately
reached the point where we shall begin our next lecture, when we
shall show how the human being, born out of the Godhead, has
developed into the present I-being. For we see that prior to this
present I-being, there existed a divine pre-human. All that part
which has been mastered by the I is each night separated from the
physical and etheric bodies, but the part which from the
beginning has always been there within him remains and watches
over these bodies when, unconcerned, the soul faithlessly deserts
them. This original divine-spiritual being remains firmly
implanted there.

All that we have
been trying to present in the language of esoteric Christianity are the profound
mysteries of existence familiar to those who were "servants
of the Logos" in the earliest times, all this is presented
unequivocally in sublime, clearly expressed verses in the Gospel of
John. One must, however, translate these first words in the right
way in conformity with their meaning. Properly translated, these
words give the actual facts which have just been presented. Let
us bring these facts again before our souls, in order that we may
fully comprehend their value.

In the beginning
was the Logos, which was the archetype of the physical human
body, the foundation of all things. All animals, plants and
minerals appeared later, for the human alone was present upon
Saturn. In the Sun Period, the animal kingdom was added, in the
Moon Period, the plant kingdom and upon the Earth the mineral
kingdom appeared. Upon the Sun, the Logos became life and upon
the Moon, it became light; then when the human being became
endowed with an I, the Logos as light confronted him. But he had
to learn to know the nature of the Logos and learn in what form
it eventually would make its appearance. First there was the
Logos which became life, then light, and this light lives in the
astral body. Into the human inner being, into the darkness, into
the ignorance, the light shone. And the meaning of life upon
Earth is this: That men should overcome this darkness of the soul
in order that they may recognize the light of the Logos.

The first words of
the Gospel of John are incisive, although perhaps difficult
to understand, as many might say. But should the most profound
mysteries of the world be expressed in trivial language? Is it
not a strange point of view, a real insult to what is holy when
one says that in order to understand a watch one
must penetrate deeply into the nature of the thing with
understanding, but for a comprehension of the Divine in the
world, the simple, plain, naive human intelligence should
suffice? It is a very bad thing for present humanity that it has
reached the point of saying, when reference is made to the
profoundness of religious documents: 0h! why all these
complicated explanations? It should all be plain and simple.
However, only those who have good intentions and good will to
plunge down into the great cosmic facts can penetrate into the
deep meaning of such words as those at the very beginning of the
most profound of the gospels, this Gospel of John, words that are
in fact a paraphrase of Spiritual Science.

Let us now
translate the introductory words of this Gospel:

In
the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
was a god. This was in the beginning with God. Through the same
all things were made and save through this Word, nothing was
made. In it was Life, and Life became the Light of men. And the
Light shone into the darkness, but the darkness comprehended it
not.

How the darkness,
little by little, comes to an understanding of the Light is
recounted later on in the Gospels.

Note
1.
The words Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan
when spelt with an initial capital letter, refer to the great cosmic
evolutionary periods. The words earth, moon, and sun, spelt with
small letters, refer to the planets of the present solar system.